# Hotel tipping guidelines **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 10, 2008, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-tipping-guidelines/448781 "2008-05-10T04:19:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MadPansy64](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@MadPansy64](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadPansy64)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-tipping-guidelines/448781/1 "2008-05-10T04:19:44Z")
How much of a tip should I leave for housekeeping each day in a nice, but not amazing (Marriott in Boise Idaho) hotel. I haven’t the vaguest of the daily charge for the room, because this is a business trip. TO make it even more difficult, it’s a company paid business trip for the purpose of having 3 meetings halfway through a relocation. Did that make sense? Hubby & I are moving because of his job, his company is paying for most of it, Hubby has to spend a week, at company expense, in the city that is home to corporate headquarters, so the company is footing the bill for our inconvenience. Business travel is not new to me. A decent, non-resort hotel is. In the past, I have gone with $1 per room occupant per day plus another buck for getting me another pillow in very basic accommodations (the Motel 6 in Lizardville, TX) and $5 per occupant per day in super fancy resort-type accommodations ($12 mini fridge candy bars, bellmen, etc) in expensive (Manhatten, La Jolla, Vegas, etc) locations. I am aware that tipping at the end of the stay is acceptable, but I prefer to tip daily, as the personnel can change, and I am all in favor of making nice-nice in advance just in case I need that extra pillow or something. So what should I tip for “nice” in the middle of nowhere? ---
**Author:** ![Dante](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dante/32/9673_2.png) [@Dante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-tipping-guidelines/448781/2 "2008-05-10T04:30:42Z")
I figure I make the same mess whether I’m staying at a fancy hotel or a regular one, and I always leave $5 per day. ---
**Author:** ![MadPansy64](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@MadPansy64](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadPansy64)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-tipping-guidelines/448781/3 "2008-05-10T15:23:53Z")
[QUOTE=Dante] I figure I make the same mess whether I’m staying at a fancy hotel or a regular one, and I always leave $5 per day. [/QUOTE] Ah, but housekeepers at the fancy places usually actually clean up that mess! The, uhm, lower end destinations tend to not change sheets & towels for the same customer, unless requested, sometimes not even then, not vacuum regularly and use lysol rather than clean the bathroom. I left $10 this morning. 2 people, 2 cats, clean room. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-tipping-guidelines/448781/4 "2008-05-10T16:57:46Z")
[QUOTE=MadPansy64] Ah, but housekeepers at the fancy places usually actually clean up that mess! The, uhm, **lower end destinations tend to not change sheets & towels for the same customer, unless requested, sometimes not even then** , not vacuum regularly and use lysol rather than clean the bathroom. [/QUOTE] Bolding mine. I don’t stay in hotels that regularly, but when i do (even if it’s a “fancy” place) i always tick the little box saying that i don’t need my sheets or towels changed every day. All of my hotel stays over the past few years have been 2-3 nights, and i just can’t fathom needing new sheets and towels for every day of such a short stay. It’s always struck me as being wasteful just because you can. ---
**Author:** ![MadPansy64](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@MadPansy64](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadPansy64)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-tipping-guidelines/448781/5 "2008-05-11T03:28:02Z")
[QUOTE=mhendo] Bolding mine. I don’t stay in hotels that regularly, but when i do (even if it’s a “fancy” place) i always tick the little box saying that i don’t need my sheets or towels changed every day. All of my hotel stays over the past few years have been 2-3 nights, and i just can’t fathom needing new sheets and towels for every day of such a short stay. It’s always struck me as being wasteful just because you can. [/QUOTE] 5-7 on average, sheets aren’t that big of a deal, depending on the relative humidity and whether the A/C works, but I want 2 freaking towels (long hair & fat ass) and I want more than one clean washcloth per week. It may or may not be the housekeepers fault, but even in backwoods BFE with one shitty motel in town, if I don’t get clean linens on request, management, my boss, & sometimes the client get a verbal comment and a letter, and the housekeeping staff get a shitty tip. It’s not so much the price of the accommodations as the level of service. Which was my point – I have stayed in not-quite sleazy dive motels, and I have stayed in top of the line hotels. Until now, I have never stayed in a merely “nice” hotel. I was asking for experiences and expectations in middle of the road, normal, regular transactions. My apologies if I was unclear in my explanation of the situation and the question involved. ---
**Author:** ![Free\_Range\_Otter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ba8739/32.png) [@Free\_Range\_Otter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Free_Range_Otter)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-tipping-guidelines/448781/6 "2008-05-12T02:56:03Z")
I used to work for a soul-sucking software company that required travel on a regular basis. On those trips I regularly stayed at hotels like the Marriott you are in and left $5 per day for housekeeping. I also think it is pretty standard for many nicer hotel chains to not change bedding unless the guest requests it, so that never figured into the equation for me. ---
**Author:** ![Atrael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Atrael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atrael)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-tipping-guidelines/448781/7 "2008-05-12T17:41:50Z")
In about the same level of hotel you’ll be in, I normally tip $2 per day. Hmmm…reading some of these responses, perhaps I’m being too cheap. But hotel maids, unlike waiters, do get paid a wage. So I don’t feel the need to be overly generouse. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-tipping-guidelines/448781/8 "2008-05-12T23:33:32Z")
I leave $1-2 a day. And thanks to a Doper’s advice, I leave it each day instead of at the end of the stay, since the team might be different each day. On the seven-day cruise I just went on, I left $20 for the week since I knew it was the same group. And it was a little more than average because they did those fun towel animals. 🙂